The Convalescing Amalgamation
by darklydreamingdead
Summary: What happens when Leonard and Penny are taking their relationship to the next level and Sheldon is left alone? A new roommate (female) with OCD moves in and provides frustration of various types for our favorite demented theoretical physicist. Rating may go up in later chapters. Sheldon/OC.
1. Amicus Deserit

"I could give you money," Sheldon offered in a higher register than was typical.

Though with the knowledge he sounded whiny and petulant, he couldn't evade the high pitch. He found himself feeling betrayed by his long-time roommate. If one had suggested that he, Sheldon Cooper, would ever be anything but relieved over the loss of Leonard's constant presence in their shared living space, why, he would have inferred that person get tested for a plethora of mental disorders. Yet, here he was, practically _begging_ Leonard to stay. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

Sheldon could do the math and the chances of the circle of friends remaining by _his _side rather than Leonard's hovered, at best, in the red. This was something he had broached and reluctantly acknowledged long ago as Raj and Howard had, rather _spirited_, confirmed.

He would have to abandon his comfortable routine and begin something… new. Newton, how he _loathed _changes in his patterns. All of this he had explained to Leonard but that hadn't stopped him from taking his belongings and moving in with that awfully fatuous, hyper-sexualized woman, their Howdy-Doody-Neighbor-from-the-Boonies, Penny.

"Have you even been listening to anything I've been saying?" Leonard asked in a tone suggesting this was a question that had been repeated several times over.

"So sorry," Sheldon replied in the heaviest sarcastic tone he could muster, "I was busy pondering over the implications your departure will mean. I won't have to cater to your and Penny's needs any longer. I can abide by my schedule and you won't ever be able to interrupt it again."

"It's not like I'm moving to the moon, Sheldon."

Sheldon flexed his hands at his side, his stooped head leaning forward to properly express his—pretend—lack of care. "You may as well be. And you know what? Yippee. I couldn't be happier."

Leonard lifted an eyebrow and placed down the box labeled "Comics 40/42" at his feet. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh, really? Then how do you explain all the begging you've been doing up until this point?"

Sheldon quickly ran over a short list of comebacks but found none of them would be convincing. His shoulders sagged as he stared wide-eyed at Leonard.

"Leonard, you know I won't be able to handle a change in our routine. I was finally getting used to having to socialize with you lesser-abled 'colleagues'," Sheldon made quotes in the air, "excluding Howard, of course. How am I going to get anywhere? You know I don't drive! And you know how I get when I'm not able to abide by our very strict schedule. Don't _do _this to me, Leonard." The words had returned to shrill supplication.

He had been staring intensely at Leonard, hoping some of his copious amounts of mental power would finally manifest itself into hypnotic conversion, or perhaps telekinesis. He would make his roommate stay forever and banish Penny from their circle and Wi-Fi access. It would keep Amy Farrah Fowler from returning as well; things had gotten awkward since their breakup over an ill attempt from said ex-girlfriend at a physical relationship that Sheldon was unable to enact.

"I'm not doing this to hurt or leave you, Sheldon. I'm doing this for Penny and me. When I was in Europe, we both realized our relationship is ready to go to the next level." Leonard paused and ran a hand through his tousled, hippy hair. His narrow, dark eyes wouldn't meet Sheldon's. He toyed with the end of his 'It's going to be a long, Dark Knight' shirt. "I'm going to ask her to marry me—"

"Because that went _so _well previously," Sheldon reminded him, his words a pointed whiplash.

"We're in a different place now that I'm back," Leonard stated as if it were the most obvious of conclusions. His face contorted, a little flushed with emotion. "While I was away, she—"

"I think you've forgotten while you've been elsewhere doing your oh-so important, regurgitated research that _I don't care_ about what goes on between you and Penny unless it inadvertently, or otherwise advertently_,_ affects me and the goings on of my life and research. I don't care to hear about it, read it, see it, or be aware of it in any capacity _at all_."

Leonard paused and appeared to be down-trodden. Perhaps he would change his mind after all.

"I know this is hard for you, Sheldon. But I have to do this. If it's any consolation, I'm going to miss you, too."

"Whoah, whoah, whoah. Hold the phasers, Leonard. No one said anything about… missing one another." The sentence felt as grotesque to Sheldon while coming from his mouth as it sounded. He felt a little nauseous and made a gagging face.

The much shorter man looked up at the drooping Sheldon and shook his head without saying a word. How dare he look as though he was sorry for him!

"Look," Leonard sighed as he picked up the box of comics resting at his feet, "I already put out an ad for you for a new roommate. The same one you put out seven years ago. It's going to be an easy transition." He rested the box on his hip with one hand on the doorknob.

"Malarky!" Sheldon exclaimed angrily, approaching the shorter man and using his height as an advantage for a scare tactic. "I won't allow this to happen and there is absolutely nothing easy about this. Can't you at least just move across the hall? I don't understand why you have to move somewhere… new."

"All of our things won't fit into Penny's apartment."

"Penny can barely fit all of her shoes into Penny's apartment, but she manages. And you're of small girth, you can surely fit in her apartment among the shoes and tampons and whatever other disgusting woman things have been amassed in her living quarters."

Leonard stared hard for a moment then squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Nothing is going to change my mind, Sheldon. You've told me before you're much farther along the evolutionary ladder than anyone else. You're going to have to take all your evolved skills and learn to adapt to your new environment."

Sheldon huffed and sat in his spot, feeling nothing more than defeated. He didn't look up when Leonard opened the door. He didn't look up when he heard Penny's voice outside their apartment door, or when Leonard handed her two boxes (because she offered and Leonard could only handle one), or when she asked if Leonard was ready, or when she asked if Sheldon was going to be okay because he looked like a kid in a candy shop without any money. And he most certainly did not look when Leonard said, "Goodbye, Sheldon" and placed his apartment key in the keyholder by the door for the last time.

*.*.*

Leonard stood outside the apartment door and something in his face made Penny aware of his reluctance. A little glitter in the corner of his eye. He turned his face to the side when he saw Penny gazing intently at his eyes.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" she asked, probably for the hundredth time. However, this time, her voice was much tenderer than the others. She really meant it, not just to hear a reminder than Leonard was as committed to this relationship as she was. She wanted to be sure he wasn't going to hurt her, that she wasn't hurting him by taking him from his best friend.

This time, though, Leonard smiled at Penny as he said, "I've never been more ready for anything in my life."

Neither looked back as they climbed down the flights of stairs and into a new life together.


	2. Et Venit Amicus

The past 23 days had been a complete and utter disaster. Sheldon Cooper's long fingers twisted the doorknob as soon as he heard a knock on the door. 12:00PM exactly, he noted as he glanced at his watch. Things may just be turning around, as this candidate possessed a few qualities he already found admirable, some from the e-mail exchange and now with the exact attendance.

Sheldon held his apartment door open just enough for his slender frame to fill the gap. And here before him, lo and behold, another disappointment. He could already feel his orbicularis oculi twitching.

"_You _are Alex Fischer?" he asked the rather short, disheveled dirty blond-haired woman standing outside his doorway wiping the knuckles of her left hand with a disinfecting wipe.

Looking like the mythical pixie, the never-going-to-be-a-roommate extended her hand as she replied genially, "Yes."

Her voice in that one word sounded like one of the prostitutes Sheldon had caught Wolowitz having webcam relations with.

Sheldon, wide-eyed, looked to her hand, her face, her hand. He blinked slowly as he stated, "But… you're a female."

"You're rather observant. What with the makeup and the curvaceous frame and feminine wiles, who would have guessed?" she offered jokingly, one side of her narrow-lipped mouth coiling. "Alex _is _a nickname for Alexandra."

Sheldon stared at her openly as if he were peering into her brain and deciphering her personality just from his physical analysis. She waited a good thirty seconds before he chuffed a laugh.

"Oh yes, I see. Sarcasm. Excuse me, I am just becoming acclimated with the usage."

Seeing that he was not going to shake her extended hand, Alex reached into the confines of the bag draped across her chest. She placed the sanitation wipe into a double zip-loc bag she retrieved, sealed it shut, and returned it to its origin.

Sheldon caught the occurrence and raised a curious eyebrow. "Why do you place the used disinfectant wipe into a zip-loc bag?"

"The germs are captured on the wipe. When I return home, I don't want to have to touch something already smeared with germs when I go to throw it away. This way the used wipe doesn't contaminate my belongings."

"I rather like that idea," Sheldon commended reluctantly with the trace of a smile. He cleared his throat. "Back to business. What is your occupation?"

Alex smiled, revealing perfect straight, well-kept pearly teeth. "I'm an art historian, restorer, collector, all around art-a-holic."

"Oh, dear Lord!" Sheldon gasped and shook his head fervently left to right. "The liberal arts. Well I am sorry to inform you, _Alexandra_, that I don't see this working out. I don't understand how I could have made such an egregious mistake. I assumed, based primarily on the robotic and precise email response to my ad, that you would be a male with scientific inclinations."

"You know what they say about assuming."

"No, I do not."

A trio of footsteps nearby had both parties turning in wonder at the intrusion. A flurry of voices came to a halt. The male portion of their gang stood at the top steps with mouths agape, staring back and forth between Sheldon and Alex.

"Uh, Sheldon," said a small man Alex internally compared to a male bird with bright colors, a hooked nose, and short in stature. She was taller than him only by a handful of inches and he seemed to use the height to his advantage, staring at her breasts rather than her face. "Who's your friend?"

"I'm Alex," she offered with a smile.

"Hi, I'm Leonard," offered a bespectacled man with narrow eyes, hair slicked back, and a nervous smile. He wrung his hands anxiously. He jerked his thumb towards the short one and a foreign man that kept his eyes on everything except Alex. "This is Howard and Raj. Are you Sheldon's new roommate?"

Alex turned her attention to Sheldon's face. He was practically shooting lasers out of his eyes in Leonard's direction. Something about the moment reminded her of a highly dissatisfied Darth Vader.

"Not quite," the new girl replied. "He was just interviewing me and seems unhappy with the fact that I am a female art historian."

"Sheldon, can you at least let us, and Alex, inside so we're not loitering out here in the hall?" Leonard piped up.

Sheldon stepped back from the frame to allow them into the apartment. Alex took the lead, a very observant Howard walked directly behind her and, as Leonard passed, Sheldon murmured, "You just had to appeal to my law-abiding side."

"Sheldon," Leonard scoffed. "I don't think I've ever appealed to any of your sides."

"True enough." Nodding a small amount after a brief moment of introspection, Sheldon followed the group and sat in his spot on the couch.

Leonard offered Alex the chair and pulled up Sheldon's office chair to be included in the circle.

"So, Alex," Howard said, turning to face her, "I'm obligated to inform you that you will want to run in the opposite direction. Or, perhaps as I did, travel to outer space and leave the planet he occupies. Sheldon isn't a member of our species. We're not quite sure what he is, but what we do know is that he is impossible to live with."

Leonard raised a finger and interjected, "Wait a second. I lived with him for seven years, so I wouldn't say it's _impossible_." He lowered his voice and hissed at Howard, "We're not trying to scare her away, are we?"

"I would ask you to retract that statement, Howard," Sheldon said.

Howard raised two eyebrows high into the confines of his old-fashioned haircut. "Fine. Alex, it's possible to live with Sheldon. That is, if you've familiarized yourself with the inner workings of the sixth floor of a mental hospital."

"Isolation?" Leonard guessed and Howard grinned, obviously pleased with himself, and nodded.

Alex flexed her fingers on the arm of the chair, her oval eyes traveling over each of the men's faces as she explained, "I knew what I was getting into when I emailed Dr. Cooper. His specifications said nothing about gender. He asked for someone willing to provide transport to the university each day, which happens to be along the route I take to get to the museum. His ad requested a subject agreeable to meeting certain codes of conduct and cleanliness through a signed contract. In my last living situation, I had redacted a similar agreement. The ad suggested someone with at least a mild comic book addiction and knowledge of various facts of beloved science-fiction characters and shows."

"And you do? Like comics and sci-fi?" Leonard questioned, his eyebrows arched and head tilted forward to peek over the top of his thick glasses. Disbelief and dawning admiration warred across his features.

"Yes. I have noted that Sheldon is wearing a shirt decorated with the original Flash symbol. He's one of my favorite superheroes."

Howard and Raj glanced meaningfully at one another and Leonard blinked rapidly in Alex's direction before turning to scrutinize his former roommate. Sheldon's mouth dropped open and he looked helpless as he looked between Leonard and Alex. His eyes narrowed as he seemed to make some sort of internal agreement of duping her out of the lead for roommate. "You... Well! Which of the Flash characters do you deem the best?"

With only a handful of seconds of thought, she replied, "Considering my middle name is _Iris_…"

Sheldon gasped. She _did _have knowledge of the Flash saga.

"Barry Allen will always be my favorite."

The three men turned their stares to Sheldon as Alex waited for his response. Their gazes were weighted and suggestive of allowing this girl the position.

"Excellent answer," Sheldon said without an ounce of enthusiasm. He studied his fingernails.

The quiet Indian cupped his hand over his mouth and spoke into the engineer's ear. Howard turned his face to Raj and answered the quiet question, "No, I think we're all waiting to see if Sheldon is going to be smart enough to let her stay."

"How many have you interviewed so far, Sheldon?" Leonard inquired, tilting his head and placing a thinking fist to his chin.

Sheldon turned his head to the side, obviously trying to disallow Alex from hearing the answer, and murmured softly, "Seventy-two."

"Did you just say _seventy-two_ people?" Alex asked incredulously, her strange colored eyes wide with disbelief.

Turning his gaze to Alex and her kohl-lined violet eyes, Sheldon raised his voice and pronounced slowly, "Oh, I apologize. I did not realize you were hard of hearing. Is _this _better?"

The bespectacled Leonard shook his head at his former roommate. "No, Sheldon. I think she meant that she's surprised you've interviewed so many people and you're acting like you're not going to let her live here." Alex nodded in agreement. "She _does_ meet all your standards. And, if I remember correctly, you did once say seventy-three is the _best_ number."

Dr. Cooper clucked his tongue defensively, his shoulders hunching as he whined, "That _is _true. But Leonard—"

"Sheldon," Leonard exclaimed, eyeing the said physicist sharply. "May I have a word with you in the kitchen?"

Both parties stood—Sheldon doing so as if he were a sulking child—followed by Howard and Raj, and drifted to the kitchen. Alex shrugged her shoulders and toyed with her smartphone while the boys spoke amongst themselves.

"You're going to let her move in here, Sheldon," Leonard almost ordered the much taller, scrawny scientist. "She meets all of your standards and seems to be… well, a little neurotic."

"Just the way you like 'em," Howard interrupted, his fingers tugged into his belt loops as he bounced on his feet.

"She's pretty," Raj offered.

"You don't understand. If my mother knew about this—" Sheldon began.

"Your mother knows that no sane woman would ever engage you in anything besides maybe a game of chess or Battleship, Sheldon. For heaven's sakes, you dated Amy for nearly four years and you barely inched towards second base!" Leonard reminded him, stabbing his finger at the kitchen table. "I don't think I have to be the one telling you that the math would suggest you get your ass in there and tell her you want her to move in!"

The gang could see Sheldon's defeat in his stance, his arms hanging limply and a stamp of the foot. "Fine! But if she gets three strikes and doesn't pass the roommate exam…"

"We need another girl in the group," Raj insisted, his stooped head leaning forward and flickering gaze between Sheldon and Howard. "Amy, Burnadette, and Penny have formed their own circle. We need eggs to break up this sausage fest!"

"We don't have any saus—" Sheldon took a small step back and narrowed his eyes keenly on Raj's face. "Oh yes, I see: synonyms for the phallus and ovaries. If I choose not to have her as a roommate?"

"Then I'm pretty sure we will see that as a sign we would need to call your mother to tell her you've finally cannonballed right into crazyville," Howard replied, snorting a little at his own joke.

"You wouldn't," Sheldon gasped.

Leonard crossed his arms over his chest, blinking a brief series of rapid shutters, and uttered, "Try me."

The tallest threw his hands into the air and stomped into the living room. The guys followed like ducklings in a formation and then huddled behind him. He stood in front of Alex and announced, "Fine. You can move in. But you better be cautious. I have an eidetic memory. I will find a mistake if you make one and the penalty is… death by Leonard's lasers."

"Sheldon!" Leonard reprimanded.

"Fine." Sheldon looked at his shoes and looked properly abashed. "There are rigorous tests you must pass if you break anything in the roommate agreement, up to and including a fine or a class in proper roommate behaviors."

Alex stood up, smiling. She clapped her hands together. "Excellent. I love a structured environment. Should we go over the paperwork now?"

"Hold onto your panty hose, Woman. I have to redraft the current one to include all the issues that come with a female with ovaries and such."

The woman's smile was a little slower coming this time, but she nodded. "I will be here tomorrow at 2:30 PM with two moving men that I will be observing at all times to make sure they don't steal anything. Goodbye Sheldon. Leonard, Howard, Raj nice to meet you all. Take care."

She left with a small click in the door, taking the vague smell of vanilla perfume with her. Sheldon collapsed into his spot.

"How could you even think to not let her live here? She seems smart, knows comics, and she's ho—" Leonard cleared his throat. "She is nice looking."

"Who knows? Maybe Raj will finally get a chance with a girl now that he can talk to them," Howard chirped. Raj smiled appreciatively at his long-time best friend.

"You all are going to end up regretting this," Sheldon reprimanded the group, eyes mostly on Leonard's face.

He couldn't have been further from the truth.


	3. Scintillula illuminatur

"Hi guys!"

The four sitting at the table enjoying a debate about the recent Nobel reaped by the Higgs Boson team—which, really, was Sheldon debating with the three others as he believed that his recent paper that had garnered an enormous reception left him deserving of the Nobel—turned silent and looked at the intruder.

Amy Farrah Fowler raised a hand in greeting, almost dropping her lunch tray clumsily in the process. She caught the tray before it could slip out of her grasp. Her gaze briefly skipped by Sheldon.

He felt his pulse quicken with annoyance, stuttering around this awkward encounter. Then again, he reminded himself, most encounters with the opposite sex left him vexed, moreso recently as he resided with a female.

The others kept glancing in his direction, trying to assess the situation. Social interactions were foreign to most of them.

"Heeeey, Amy," Leonard drawled, obviously uncomfortable. Each of the guys followed suit, softly tittering.

Amy rocked back and forth on her heels with a self-deprecating smile, obviously waiting for something.

Exchanging meaningful glances that held whole conversations, the gazes settled on Leonard's face.

"Why don't you sit with us, Amy?" he asked after the silent debate was settled.

She promptly plopped down next to Sheldon and said, "Thank you, Leonard. It's nice to be wanted." The tone was sharp with animosity aimed towards the man child in the group.

They all poked at their foods quietly for a few excruciating moments of thick tension that felt like swimming in bad soup.

The latest to the party was the one to break the silence, "So, I hear that you have a new roommate. And… that it's a woman."

"Correct," Sheldon dryly replied, a thread of dread piercing his otherwise unbroken personal comfort bubble.

He was not quite sure where she was taking this conversation. Most women, primal beings that they are, would find another female in her 'territory' threatening. Though he had made clear to Amy that the territory of relationship amicability between them had dissolved to nothing.

"Great!" Amy chirped, her whole face gone into a state of shock-joy that looked comical: a grimacing smile, un-plucked eyebrows arching dangerously into the shadows of her thick bifocals. Her eyes were little slits like a hissing cat as she boomed, "That's just _great_!"

She opened her mineral water and immediately slammed it on the table beside Sheldon. Water jumped from the bottle and managed to get nearly everyone misted, most of all Sheldon. He dropped his fork and turned an incredulous gaze to her and the strange wild, jerky movements she was in the midst of maneuvering. She speared a sausage and began sawing at it with a plastic knife, the movements getting faster and faster until she was simply stabbing the sausage.

Leonard cleared his throat as Amy inhaled deeply and loudly, breathing out her mouth and settling back into a relaxed posture. "Uh, Amy… something bothering you?"

The response was immediate and snapped. "No."

"I think Sheld—I mean, your sausage, would beg to differ," Howard said while eyeing the current state of chunked sausage.

Amy stood just as abruptly as she had sat. She leaned over the table, her finger thrust in Sheldon's face. "It isn't fair, Sheldon! We dated for four years and as soon as I ask you to move in with me, you end it because you don't know how to live with a female. Now I find out you've replaced Leonard with a blond-haired bimbo!"

"Wait, we're talking about Alex, not Penny, right?" Walowitz asked. Amy merely shot him a glare promising death if he said another word. "Saaww-ree."

Sheldon shook his head with eyes closed, hands hoisted onto hips. "Look at this. I told you spending as much time with Penny, some of her cantankerous, emotional outbursts would eventually be mirrored onto your behaviors. I don't think I have to justify my living with a female. And I believe the words I used were: 'unable to live with a _girlfriend_.' As Alex is not my girlfriend, it is allowable. The woman drives me crazy, in fact."

"She does?"

"Amy, she has a phD in… art history."

"Still better than Howard," Leonard murmured.

Amy's mouth opened a bit, obviously biting off a remark and put a hand on Sheldon's shoulder. "I apologize for my outburst, Sheldon. I—well, I thought she would be someone I'd have to worry about. _Whew_! Glad I found that out before I got _really _crazy!"

"This was only a little crazy?" Howard asked. His eyebrows raised high over his bulging blue eyes.

Either embarrassed or having said what she needed to say, Amy left her lunch tray and quickly jogged out of the cafeteria, eyes trained on her shoes as she left.

"Is it just me or does the thought of her going full crazy sound totally hot?" Raj remarked with a wide grin, nodding his head to the guys in almost-approval-seeking.

"No," the three others replied in unison rather sharply.

*~*~*BBT~*~*~*

Sheldon tossed his keys into the holder by the door and paused a moment as he did each time he arrived home to briefly ponder over the day's events and then assess his surroundings to make sure nothing in the roommate agreement had been broken. The current state was acceptable but there was an appalling smell in the room that he had a moment of trouble placing.

"Oh, right," he murmured to himself as he settled his messenger bag beside his office desk. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. "The _painter_ restoreth. I suppose it's possible I replaced Leonard with a female Leonard, both working on previously completed masterpieces."

He sat in front of his laptop and tapped the power button. The machine purred like a happy kitten being stroked.

"Hello to you, too, Sheldon." Alex's voice startled him from behind and the water he was about to take a drink from spilled on his shirt.

"Drat! This is the second time today. It's good that I have another backup shirt." He turned his nearly blinkless stare to Alex, exited to his bedroom, carefully set the messed shirt into the dirty laundry (folded, of course, he wasn't an animal) and pulled on his last backup shirt.

When he re-entered the living room, Alex stood beside the sink, washing the paint away. She watched his arrival with her strange, intense violet gaze. It had him uncomfortable a handful of seconds later. He turned his attention to the way her hands rubbed the color away from her skin, turning the water into murky rainbow colors. There was a runaway fleck of paint in her short, side-swept blond bangs that he wanted to wipe away for her. He had to physically stop himself from doing just that.

"Don't you think you could have approached me a bit more subtly? I could have possibly hurt you."

The painter laughed, a little tinkle of noise that somehow reminded Sheldon of dancing birds—when did birds dance anyway?—and summer rain, silly but subtly sweet. The sound always garnered a smile, no matter how small, from him. His mouth twitched. Absolutely irksome.

"Subtlety is for thieves and liars," Alex replied as if she had regurgitated this line many times. "And I don't think you'd ever hurt me, Sheldon. Actually I don't think you'd even hurt a fly. Another backup shirt, you said? What happened to the first one?"

Sheldon adjusted his pants as he sunk into the cushion of his favorite spot. "Yes, an unfortunate side effect from a conundrum that I am having some trouble discerning. Hmm. As you are female, you _are _a primal creature lead strongly by emotions. Perhaps you can help me to understand why exactly Amy Farrah Fowler was upset with me today."

Alex clucked her tongue, a habit Sheldon had noticed resulted from her displeasure with something he had said. Her hands now worked on disinfecting her skin. She would do this three times over, as he knew she would. "Jeez, Sheldon, let's keep the insults above the belt, okay? No bringing my lady parts into your problems."

"Very well. I and the lesser of the group were eating lunch as per usual when, out of the blue, a raving, mad woman rudely butts herself into our table and proceeds to stab her food as if she were Lizzie Borden!" He became more animated as he spoke, scooting down further to the end of his couch cushion.

"What does this have to do with Amy?" Alex rested her hip against the kitchen island.

"It _was _Amy."

In response, her head cocked and she narrowed her eyes, disbelieving, at Sheldon. The paint flecked bang shifted; his finger twitched. "Did she say anything?"

"Yes, she went on for ages about how I have a new roommate that's a girl and how our relationship ended because I wouldn't move in with her. What do you think was upsetting her? She knows our relationship is over and that I would never find you remotely attractive."

Sheldon got the distinct feeling he had said something wrong when Alex's face distorted into something… profoundly sad, that's what it was. She hastily turned her face from his view. He wanted to stop her from looking away. He wanted her full attention when they conversed. He wanted to fix that look off her face. He wanted to get that blasted piece of paint out of her hair.

Trying to amend the situation, he added, "You know, you being an artist type."

"Right. Because I'm just a stupid, emotional, female artist that has no idea about the innerworkings of the human mind. So why ask me?" She swept her bangs from her eyes, her chin jutting out a little as she shot him a loaded look. "And Sheldon, that question is rhetorical."

Alex turned to leave the room. Sheldon stood up and shouted, "Wait!"

For a few moments, she stood stock still before taking a long breath and turning slowly back around. Her expression remained guarded as she waited.

"You have some paint in your hair. Please remove it."

She looked like a mishmash of feelings and sounded less than pleased when she grunted a loud, "Ugh!" She stomped into the bathroom to take a hot shower in which, he knew, she would wash her body and hair three times before disinfecting three times.

Now that he thought about it, she'd probably be the only other human being he would be comfortable touching as her OCD left her body arguably cleaner than his own.

He thought of the fleck of paint in her hair and the sadness that had permeated her stare.

"Idle minds live in the Devil's playground, Mom always said," he muttered. Dr. Cooper took his place before his laptop to deal with easier problems, equations, and numbers rather than intangible things like feelings and instincts.


	4. Cadit Aegritudo

Six months had passed and Sheldon still refused Alex's idea of placing her favorite blanket on the chair in the living room. He had explained to her it would make them look like trash, or comparable to Penny's living quarters. Alex had huffed and puffed but Sheldon could not be blown down. They eventually compromised and she was allowed to deploy the blanket only while in use, after that, it must return back to her room. He even amended the roommate agreement to reflect this.

Besides, he had allowed her to add little feminine touches to the apartment at his approval: some paintings, lilac curtains, feminine hygiene products near the chemicals in the bathroom closet, an authentic medieval crossbow… just little things females like to be present in a home.

It was edging on Christmas time and Sheldon had caught the flu since he refused to get the shot (almost as dirty as a toilet seat, those hospitals.) Alex was busy making his hot beverage and he was busy on the couch lying down in his robe with Alex's blanket draped over his body. His feet poked out from the bottom as it was meant to accommodate a much shorter person.

"Did the—_AHHH-CHOOO! Sniffle—_others call yed to say when they're comeeng over for vintage game nide?"

"Sheldon," Alex said gently as she placed his hot beverage on the coffee table, "the guys aren't going to come over 'til you're better. They all inexplicably disappeared on two-week vacations the day you first got sick. But never mind them. I will play with you if you're feeling up to it."

"You know I'm nodda hip-hop jive mad. I don' like to mix theegs ub. Oh my! Is thad a storb troober?" Sheldon peered into his mug at the storm trooper Alex had created with the foam at the top of his drink.

"Since you're a trooper right now, thought you might like one," she joked with a half-smile twirking the corners of her lips. In her hands, she offered three games they could get started on.

"Thad wan," he proclaimed, extending a Kleenex-full hand to one of his favorite vintage games.

An hour later, Alex had beaten Sheldon 4 out of 5 rounds. Sheldon folded his arms across his chest, ever the petulant child. "It's nod fair because I'b sick."

"I know. That's why I let you win one."

"Led me? Oh, ride, like I would ever belieb thad."

Alex laughed heartily. She disappeared into his room with the humidifier and returned to the living room. She had donned disposable gloves, size small. "Bed time, Doctor Cooper."

"Bud it's only nide o' clock," Sheldon protested. "I still hab thirdy minutes."

She smiled at him, albeit a little haggardly. She then tossed his dirty Kleenexes in a zip loc baggy and threw the baggy and gloves away altogether.

"You don'd look so good," he remarked as he looped his arm around her shoulders and leaned his sick weight on her. He felt as if his legs weighed a hundred pounds and his sinuses at least twice that. His head might explode if he worked too hard.

"Thanks, you're not so hot yourself," she grunted as she helped him settle into his bed.

"I beg to differ," Sheldon said. "I know I hab a teberchurr."

Alex smiled that small smile he had come to call, in his mind, _the Patient Smile,_ and brushed her bangs from her face. "Good night, Sheldon. I'm going to go disinfect the couch."

She checked to make sure the humidifier was on before getting up to leave.

"Wade! Soft kiddy," Sheldon pleaded in a thick voice. He sneezed. "Please?"

Alex sighed, running her delicate fingers through her jagged blond hair. (She had kept it short despite plans to grow it out since Sheldon had remarked once that, in a picture, her hair looked pretty when it was long but that her short hair was much prettier.) "All right, just once tonight, okay?"

Her voice was heavenly. It almost always put him immediately to sleep as he felt so happy, and comfortable, and warm with his favorite childhood lullaby from her lips. Her musical voice was honey dropped in warm milk. The sound lulled him, waves against shore pulling with the tide, and pulling, and pulling…

"Much bedder thad when Penny would do id. You're nod so bad." Sheldon's red-rimmed eyes were sealed shut when he spoke. He could still feel her in the room next to him; her presence was always ferromagnetic in nature to his subconscious. He couldn't smell because his sinuses had clogged his nasal cavities, but he knew her lavender vanilla scent would have just settled into the atmosphere of his room. He found himself half-wishing to smell it now. "For an ardiss."

*~*~*BBT~*~*~*

Something had changed and Alex couldn't really pinpoint the exact moment when it had coalesced into something… other. Maybe it was seeing Sheldon vulnerable, taking care of him, maybe it was the things he murmured to her while he was almost asleep. Whatever it was, she realized she had begun finding herself daydreaming about Sheldon while working on her restorations, while examining the latest art pieces, while painting, while showering, while sleeping…

But it couldn't be anything besides curiosity, right? Her mother always told her Alex loved challenges but, once chewed up, would spit it out like old gum.

Maybe it was because she liked feeling helpful, or that he was always watching her so intently, dissecting her right down to her core with just his stare while his mouth argued and prodded and insulted. To her, it seemed as though there was something else there right below the surface; she could feel it.

He didn't really think the things about her he claimed he did. She knew he was impressed with her Latin (she had won third place in the National Latin Exam) and with her knowledge of random historical facts. She knew he loved how clean she was, despite being the result of a disorder—he had said it was more like perfect order than a disorder.

He wasn't very good at hiding how he felt.

Mid-conversation, even heated ones, he would have drifted out of the conversation so he could give her one of those x-ray stares. Alex sometimes worried he could see right through her, see her for the scared girl she was inside; scared of moving forward, scared of being alone forever, scared of the unknown…

Alex had finished disinfecting the couch—three times, just to be sure—while humming _Soft Kitty_.

As she gathered her blanket from the couch she realized it still smelled of Sheldon and his natural musk that was impossible to put a name to besides a summer night in the south before a hurricane: salty, earthy, electric, just the lightest touch of a garden a mile down the road. She fell asleep with the blanket enveloping her and dreamt a simple dream of Sheldon holding her while it stormed outside the window.


	5. Festum Nativitatis

Christmas came on the heels of Thanksgiving so quickly this year, Sheldon believed. He had visited his mother for Thanksgiving but for Christmas he could not stand the state of Texas during that time of year and his mother forcing him to church. So Christmas was to be spent alone. If counting Alex, the guys, and—awkwardly enough—the girls was considered alone.

People made such a big deal about the day. He loathed everything about it. There seemed to be so much preparation and food and having to think about what people liked and what they would want, not need. So tedious.

Alex had hung all the decorations at the house and even he had to admit some of them turned out… not so badly. She was on a bit of a Minecraft kick and had modeled the Christmas tree after the squared trees in the game. Everyone _ooh_ed and _ahh_ed at the decorations.

He felt almost like a child again when he woke up at dawn. He stood in his robe in front of Alex's door and knocked. "Alex." Knock-knock. "Alex." Knock-knock. "Alex."

She was the only person he knew that actually appreciated his three rounds of knocks as it coincided happily with her OCD.

Alex pulled her door open in the middle of rubbing her eyes, her hair looking as though it had just been electrocuted. She wore nothing but a tank top and shorts that edged a little high for Sheldon's liking. He could see her bright pink bra strap and had to tear his gaze away to her violet eyes.

"Time for presents, it's already dawn. Let's get a move on the day!"

"Hold on, Sheldon, let me brush my teeth and put my contacts in."

"Fine."

He stood outside the bathroom looking in and watching her complete her allotted tasks while nearly bouncing up and down with excitement. Near the end, when she was flossing, he chirped, "Come on, come on, _come on_!"

"Okay, okay, okay!" Alex replied with a giggle. She had never seen Sheldon so excited about something other than physics. She wasn't prepared for the moment he grabbed her hand—electricity straight to the heart—and led her into the living room.

There was a big box wrapped with red paper and a green bow with Sheldon's name on it. There were several smaller boxes Alex had organized.

"By the alphabet," he said in approval, shaking his head in happy disbelief. He looked at the tag on the huge box. "Ooh, lookie. I get the biggest one!"

There was only one present from Sheldon addressed to Alex that was heavier than expected. She hefted it into her lap and watched the tall physicist as he approached his present. Sheldon tore the top off the box. The bow that held the pieces of cardboard together fluttered to Sheldon's feet and the cardboard box fell away to reveal a stack of shirts, a stack of comic books, and a frame.

"I actually made those shirts, so you have one-of-a-kind clothes. Super rare." She smiled, knowing this would please Sheldon. It had taken her three months to finish all of the design and printing for a short stack of t-shirts. He held each one up and examined it, smiling all the while, peppered occasionally with approving nods. "The comics—there's eighteen of them in all. They're all from your wishlist of comics that you needed to complete your various collections." He carefully examined each, his smile growing larger.

Alex could feel her heart growing warmer with each item he touched as if it were treasure. She was excited for him to look in the frame.

When he glimpsed it, he dropped the comic book that had been in his hand. The frame was inset: the background was a painted picture Alex had spent a painstaking amount of hours on of Dr. Sheldon Cooper holding a Nobel prize for physics. The foreground was a mounted coin. One of her cousins, a jeweler, had melted down some gold and minted a Nobel coin at her request.

"Until you get the real thing, I thought you might like something to have as a placeholder."

Sheldon stared at the frame for minutes. Happiness turned to worry as the moments rolled by and he said nothing, did not move an inch. Until he looked up at her with such intensity, so much she could drown in it. He was silent as he stood, carefully placed the frame in his place on the couch, then wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

"Thank you, Alex. Those are some of the most thoughtful gifts anyone has ever gotten me."

The smile she felt radiated down to her ankles, her blush colored her cheeks and ears and the tip of her nose.

"My present to you may not be as good," Sheldon warned as she slid a nail beneath a corner of her present.

Alex was slower to remove the ruler-straight paper from her present. "It's the though that—"

When the paper was removed, her eyes began to water.

"Oh my God, Sheldon. Is this… is this authentic?" Even as she spoke she was examining a page from the sketchbook of her favorite very famous, very long dead artist. On the other side of the frame was a notice of authenticity and purchase from Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sheldon… This must have cost so much money."

"It wasn't much since it's just a small piece of a sketchbook page. Unlike one of his paintings. _That _was a lot of money that I didn't have, unfortunately."

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to keep the tears from leaving her eyes. "This is too much, Sheldon. Thank you."

It was a great start to the day.

Each insisted on hanging their prospective frames and did so very carefully in a handful of hours, lightning quick time for both perfectionists. It was not long after they finished lunch, both strangely quiet and, for some reason or other, unable to look at the other for more than a few seconds at a time, that the party arrived.

Penny wore a cute little red number with a headband that had a spring attached from which hung mistletoe. Bernadette was dressed as a Christmas elf. Amy looked especially sullen in all black and, as a lightweight, looked pretty sloshed and it was only eight o'clock.

Alex and Sheldon bragged about the gifts they'd received and doled out the rest of the presents which were whitewash in comparison.

Dinner passed amicably but once the alcohol began to flow, the mood began to alter drastically.

The three girls sat in the corner in the kitchen drinking wine and whispering amongst themselves.

It reminded Sheldon of awkward family dinners in which Mom and Dad had just had a huge fight and were trying, not very well, to remain civil in front of their twins. Ahh, the holidays.

"So I heard that Howard helped you with the engineering of the Christmas tree," Leonard's shrill voice asked-but-not-asked Alex.

"Yeah, it was really, uh, interesting to work with him. To say the least." Alex smiled in Howard's direction and raised her cup of eggnog in salute. "But he did a great job."

"Thanks. It was nothing, you know," Howard responded, huffing his narrow chest out a little proudly. Bernadette came running as soon as Alex had turned her eyes in his direction. She stationed herself at Howard's arm as if Alex had tried to sexually assault him then and there. Her tinny laugh was a measure to maintain an illusion of calm.

Alex shrugged uncomfortably and there was a piece of Sheldon that felt almost… protective of her, wanting to defend her. She was his roommate, after all. The Christmas lights made her hair look tinted by paint as it usually was. Sheldon's fingers itched. How odd.

"Please tell me this eggnog has alcohol in it," Penny said even as she was about to take a swig.

Leonard raised his eyebrows at her. "Eggnog and wine? That's going to be great in the morning…"

"Well, there's alcoholic and non-alcoholic," Alex put in helpfully. "You're currently drinking non-alcoholic, but here." She offered Penny a smile and a correctly-alcoholed eggnog.

"Hey listen," Penny slurred. "Nobody even asked _you_. Don't try to act all nice. We all know you stole Sheldon from Amy. It ain't a secret, sister."

"_Penny_," Bernadette reprimanded sharply.

"Excuse me," Sheldon interrupted. "No one stole me from anyone or anything. She's not my girlfriend. There's not a remote chance for that happening."

"No, no. Listen. My best friend was with him for years. You, hussy, get here for less than a year and you've got him wrapped around your little—"

"Oooookay, Penny, I think we've had enough." Leonard cut her off both in sentence and in drink which he took from her hand and tossed down the kitchen sink. "I think it's about time that we adjourn?"

It seemed a lot longer than actually passed by the time everyone had said their last uncomfortable, we're-ignoring-the-drama-that-happened goodbye. Amy held Penny up and helped her down the stairs, Leonard carrying the gifts behind them. Bernadette, Howard, and Raj left in the same car.

By that time both hosts were exhausted and Alex crawled into her bedroom a little bruised from the hurtful words from Penny. And echoing behind that, Sheldon's words kept haunting her. 'There's not a remote chance for that happening.' 'You're not bad, for an artist.' But what outshone that by just a hair was the picture on her wall, the smile on her face, the warmth in her chest. She pressed her hand against the wall connecting their rooms, pressed the blanket into her nose, and quickly fell asleep.

Sheldon lay awake, feeling shy but charged at the same time. He didn't know what to do with himself. He paced the hallway in front of Alex's door, contemplating knocking. He did so until the ungodly hour of 10:30PM and collapsed onto his bed, sleeping as soon as his head hit the pillow.


	6. Hinc quo imus?

"Leonard," Penny grumbled miserably with her forehead resting against the cool toilet seat, "please tell me I didn't make an absolute ass of myself last night in front of Alex. It _was _just a dream right?"

Leonard fumbled with a way to make things seem a little less than the disaster that had occurred. "Um well, I… you—ah, uh…"

"Leonard!" she barked. "Did I or didn't I?"

"Well it certainly.. wasn't the nicest you've ever been," Leonard admitted, shoulders raised as he braced himself for Penny's emotional onslaught.

"Oh, God, it _did _happen! Leonard, I feel awful! How could I have said those mean things to Alex?" She stood unsteadily and shook her head with a grimace. Her phone buzzed and sang on their headboard. "I mean, granted, they were mostly true but I don't think she's really a hussy. I _do_ think she is mental for liking Sheldon."

The waitress brushed her teeth quickly to rid any sick taste from her mouth. She straightened her messy hair and hustled into their room.

As he followed her into their bedroom, he said, "I really don't think she _likes_ Sheldon, Penny."

"You're kidding me, right?" Penny asked as she retrieved her phone. It buzzed two more times. "She practically eyesexed him _all night_ until he looked at her, then she just casually looked away? The craziest part was _it looked like Sheldon was doing the exact same thing!_"

Her attention was diverted as she began reading the texts from her self-proclaimed best friend.

"Sweetheart," Leonard spoke slowly, "It may be crazy to think that Alex likes Leonard, but it's batpoop insane to think Sheldon would ever feel the same. Alex is an artist and that drives him crazy. And he also complains about her all the time. All. The. Time. And he always talks about her doing things that are _exactly _like the neurotic things he does… Except, well… he does love himself and doesn't see the things that he does as irrational at all… Oh, my God, you might be right!"

"Leonard." Penny gasped, one hand fluttered to her mouth. She had completely ignored the trail of outward spoken thoughts her boyfriend had just announced. Her eyes were wide as she stared at her phone.

"What is it?" he asked, a little worried now from the look on her face.

She handed the phone to him and he read the series of text messages from Amy Farrah Fowler out loud.

"'Penny, I am soooooo wasted'—which is spelled wrong here."

"Read the rest, Leonard."

"Okay, right. 'I'm going to go over to Raj's. He's lonely. Like me. Do you think I should go?' 'Hello? Bestie?' 'Ok, I'm at Raj's. He's like hot caramel apple sauce. You know what I mean?' 'Oh right, you do. You slept with him that one time...'"

Leonard stopped talking, turned an intense glare towards his girlfriend, looked back at the screen, then once more to her face. Penny's jaw dropped and she quickly swiped the phone from his limp grasp. _Oh God,_ she thought, panicking. _I hadn't told him about that almost-sex_.

"Um. She's joking," Penny squeaked. "_Ha-ha. _What an awful joke. I'm going to text her now how not funny that joke was."

"How could you?" Leonard grilled her. He turned his back to her, running two shaking hands through his thick hair. "Why didn't you tell me? How _many _of my friends have you slept with, Penny? Am I going to find out you slept with Sheldon? Howard?" A deep breath and a hitch in his throat, he shook his head over and over, the motion loosening little strands of his curly hair.

"None, Leonard, believe me," Penny pleaded. Her hands gripped her chest over her heart, willing it to not shatter. "We didn't actually even have sex. We were _going to_ but—"

"You know what? Never mind. I don't want to know… I… I'm gonna go. I can't even look at you right now." He gathered a suitcase and started blindly throwing clothes into the open orifice.

"_Please_. You have no idea how sorry I am. I should have told you. Things have been so good betwe—"

"You're damn right you should have told me!" Leonard shouted, incredulous. He eyed her for just a moment, watched her face blanch and her eyes sparkle with the promise of tears. He turned before he could weaken, before he could let her change his mind.

The door slam pronounced Leonard's anger without the use of anymore words.

"Great job, Penny," she derided herself and plopped on the bed. "Just let Leonard read the texts about Amy and Raj. Idiot!" The distraction subsided and she finished reading the rest of the texts indicating that Raj had taken Amy's virginity. Amy was on her way over and was freaking out.

*~*~*BBT~*~*~*

Plastic sheeting covering walls, floors, counters, nearly every inch of the kitchen. Alex stood before the sink in a biohazard suit. The sheeting crinkled and hissed as she disassembled the plastic. Sheldon paid no mind to the goings-on in the adjoining room, most of his concentration on the laptop in front of him.

"Are you guys repainting the kitchen?" Leonard asked, attempting to strike up conversation.

"No. I should think it obvious what Alex is in the process of doing," Sheldon remarked as his long fingers expertly tap danced over the keypad.

"Making a nuclear warhead?"

"You _can't_ be serious," Sheldon chuffed indignantly. He cocked his head to the side, narrowed eyes, and shook his head in disbelief at the previous roommate.

"I—you know what, never mind," Leonard grumbled and kept alternating glances between the quiet Sheldon and the occupied woman.

Alex had finished gathering the plastic sheeting and placed all the material in a trash bag before removing the biohazard headpiece. The suit made a slight popping noise as she shook out her short hair, the golden locks glistening.

"I was just doing the dishes," she explained with a smile, paused near Sheldon's work desk. "But Sheldon's been feeling sick lately so I've taken over disinfecting everything and doing the dishes so his sickness doesn't spread. Sheldon and I couldn't agree as to whom would be the one responsible for cleaning chores… so we alternate weeks and use a biohazard suit since neither of us want to come in contact with any lingering bacteria."

Leonard squinted, looked up as if the answers to his silent questions were spelled in small letters on the ceiling. "Uh… right. That makes… sense, I guess." He added in a lower register so the others could not hear: "In your guys' world."

The short artist removed the rest of the biohazard suit right there in the living room. The act seemed oddly intimate to Leonard, who busied himself with studying Sheldon's face. His eyes were trained on the woman removing her outermost layers. The sound similar to that of a hissing snake garnered Leonard's attention away from Sheldon's odd creased brow. Alex had adorned cleaning gloves and sprayed down the inside of the suit with disinfectant. By God, Sheldon was probably beside himself with pleasure at the new cleanliness she brought to their residence.

Citrus smoke filled the room. Leonard restrained coughs but Sheldon and Alex seemed virtually immune to the too-clean odor.

"So what's going on, Leonard?" Alex asked, now coating the outside of the suit with disinfectant. "You seem awfully quiet. Is Penny okay? She had a lot to drink last night.""

"Oh, _please_," Sheldon whined, shutting the lid of his laptop promptly. It snapped loudly. "We don't need to bring up _that_ fiasco. We've all been exposed to Penny in her, shall we say, less than reputable moments… And we don't need to hear Leonard talk anymore about their relationship. He talks about it incessantly at work, during dinner, game nights."

Alex threw arrows from her eyes directed at Sheldon's distracted stare. "I know, Sheldon. I'm usually there, too." Her tone bordered on annoyance but she delivered a mug of some hot beverage to Sheldon carefully anyway.

The memory of Penny's behavior last night, the rude comments she had spewed at the newest member of the group, unleashed a flurry of panic that had been previously knotted in Leonard's chest. "I really hope you're not angry with her. She didn't know what she was—" Then his mind flashed forward to the occurrences of the morning thus far. "Oh, screw it. I'm _pissed_ at her anyway. Be mad at her if you want to."

Something in Leonard's tone stopped the spraying. Alex placed her project on the ground and faced Leonard, examining his expression closely. He felt as though his mother were scrutinizing him, peeling his mind open and peering into his brain to pick him apart.

"What happened?" Her tone was gentle, sweet, concerned. Though she might share some of Sheldon's odd intricacies, she had no problem expressing her feelings as a fully socialized person might. Leonard immediately felt a caramelized relief drip through his otherwise chalky emotions.

"She was showing me texts from Amy, who spent the night with Raj," he complained as if he were a child tattling to his mother. "Oh, and, she forgot to mention that _she_ _slept with Raj, too!_"

Wrapped in his own frustration, Leonard completely forgot how the first portion of his story might affect others in the room.

The back of her wrist lying across his disproportionate forehead, Alex's eyebrows bunched as she studied Sheldon's reaction. His mouth made a tiny, trembling 'O.' His eyes were glassy and wide, in a frozen state of shock. She withdrew her hand.

Leonard had realized the thickness of the silence in the room and his hand fluttered to his nose, slid down to cover his mouth. "Oh, Sheldon. I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to find out like that."

"Amy?" Sheldon's voice was just barely above a whisper as he turned the full weight of his gaze to the other physicist. "_Amy_? Amy Farrah Fowler? _My_ Amy?" He jerked back in his seat further with each annunciation.

"She can sleep with whomever she chooses as she isn't _your_ Amy anymore, Sheldon," Alex reminded him tartly. Her gaze lingered hotly on his face for a beat before she told Leonard, "I'm sorry to hear that about Penny. What did she say when you asked her about it?"

"I didn't stick around long enough to hear whatever petty excuses she concocted to try to smooth over the situation," Leonard replied, his eyes cast down in hard shame.

Alex chewed on her lip, eyebrows knit together in concentration as she mulled over Leonard's words. Sheldon had remained in a state of shock before he shook his head and turned his whole body towards the shorter man.

"You _were_ talking about Amy Farrah Fowler?"

"Yes, Sheldon. Amy spent the night with Raj. Just get over it, okay?"

Sheldon's mouth gaped before he replied sharply, "I listened to your Penny jibber jabber but you can't take a moment to answer a simple _yes _or _no?_ I may not be well rehearsed in social protocol, but I know enough to be offended and to know when you're being selfish. When am I ever selfish with you?"

"How about _all the time?_" the former roommate quipped.

"Okay. Both of you," Alex hollered, "be quiet. You are both adults and need to handle your situations accordingly. Leonard, you're in a committed relationship with Penny and you need to listen to her side before jumping to conclusions. We don't mind having you here—"

"Speak for yourself," the praying-mantis-comparable scientist grunted.

"But you shouldn't just run away at the first sign of trouble. And Sheldon, you don't have a fever and you don't have a relationship with Amy. I can understand why you'd be upset that she is moving on. Your pride has taken a big hit but you have to accept that eventually this was going to happen anyway."

"I never expected her to settle for someone lesser than myself. Especially not _Koothrappali._"

"You think _everyone _is lesser than you, Sheldon," Leonard mumbled miserably, looking properly abashed.

"Leonard, I don't mean to be rude, but go home. Talk to Penny. I'm sure she's upset right now."

Leonard stood and paused, adjusted his glasses, his hoodie. "I guess you might be right. I'm just gonna—" He indicated the door and left Alex with her back to Sheldon.

She turned around slowly. Sheldon remained still as though the news of his former girlfriend had struck him dumb.

"What are you thinking?" Alex questioned softly. Her hands ached to wrap around his slender shoulders, to hold him to her chest so he could hear the way her heart skipped when they touched. It was with great difficulty that she returned to the pile of disinfectant and biohazard suit, gathered them in her lap, and sat on the floor in front of Sheldon.

He didn't reply at first. He made a few almost-starts with sharp intakes of breath and a lightning flash of blue aimed her way.

Seeing he wasn't going to speak after all, Alex offered, "Do you feel betrayed by Raj? I doubt that was his intention… Angry with Amy?"

"Oh I know just what Raj's intentions were." Sheldon paused. "Taking my and Leonard's leftovers. He is nothing but an echeneidae, often found suckling the flesh of various creatures. Well... He oft complains that his bed is insufficient for only one occupant and has been searching for another. It has been a rather cold winter…"

"Sheldon…" Alex sighed, her violet eyes conveying the trouble she felt. "I think they probably did more than try to keep one another warm."

"Do you think they—?"

"Yes…"

Sheldon took a long sip of air before asking quickly and quietly, "Held hands?"

Alex smiled sadly and shook her head at Sheldon. "I think you should talk to Amy if it's really bothering you. Let her… let her know how you feel. Women need that."

She wanted to tell him that it was okay for him to move on. She wanted to tell him that she could make it okay. Instead, she smiled encouragingly before she disappeared into her bedroom.


End file.
